[Dr House]

You would have poverty with a GINI coefficient of 50 anyway.

I know that.

The point is that the challenge now is resolving that problem. It is my position that the government needs to focus its efforts into industrializing the nation. Redistributing the wealth, if necessary, can come later.

[ingliz]

With substantial oil revenues $200 billion is neither here nor there, leave the figures as they were.(Saudi oil revenues $120 billions with oil at $26 a barrel). Using Saudi figures with oil at $60 a barrel and factoring in shipbuilding, the freeport, etc. we should be able to touch the middle GDP estimate.

[dilpill]

Ingliz, he actually made it easier to have a bigger government in a relative sense (government spending per capita), since he reduced the population much more than he reduced the GDP.

On the bill:

Article 1: I like the basic premise, but I would like for it to be more specific, and we don't currently have a way to get the revenue to run something as expensive as a single payer healthcare system.

Article 2: I agree with everything except for universal first-level tertiary education. That's a luxury that we can't afford right now, because of our relatively low GDP. For now, I would rather have a Scholarship program similar to Florida's Bright Futures program.

Article 3: I agree with Dan on this.

[Demosthenes]

House is charged with being both non-partisan and fair in his development of PoFo. Those with concerns about what he is doing are more than free to come up their own development, and it has been repeatedly asked if people would like to participate. DillPill is even now asking for names, but no one is really doing much there either.

One of the issues facing the game right now is a derth of critics, but a lack of those taking the initiative. Perhaps if some of the critics would become more active in development, along reasonable non-partisan lines, everyone would begin to appreciate the work involved in the development process. I admit some hesitation myself on House's figures, but I'd like to him to see it to the conclusion before we tinker to see where he might make other changes that could be favorable.

To my way of thinking initiative should be it's own reward simply because of the nature of the sim. Meaning, if you take the initiave your work takes precedence over complaints about it, unless it's completely off the charts nuts.

I made the point in teh GM council, and House agreed by not commenting that if he took a leisure that would help one side, he would give elsewhere. If conditions are perfect for one side, we have no basis for debate amoung the parties.

It should be a situation where no one side has conditions perfect for them.

As to the bill, some of you, Cheese in particular- are against the labor standard, would you accept Ingliz's proposed Union Standards bill instead? (In the SN-RF thread)?

We were never married to the labor idea, it was merely intended to be a third point of substantial legistlation, as was requested of us by House in the GM council. To then indict us on it, is rather...bland, isn't it? Just pointing that out.

[ingliz]

So if 75% of government revenue is oil based and we produce half Saudi's figures that gives us $240 Federal billions to play with plus state and local funding. I don't think a minimum safety net, universal healthcare and education are out of the question with a 20 million population. Nationalising the energy sector would help.

[Demosthenes]

Nationalising the energy sector would help.

Careful...you will scare em all off with that kinda talk...

[MB.]

I would vote against the adoption of this bill.

Last I checked this is the only canon material on the PoFo Republic economy

Labor force:
22 million (est)

Labor force - by occupation:
agricultural: 46%
industry: 35%
services: 19%

Unemployment rate:
8.4%

Household income:
lowest 10%: 3.1%
highest 10%: 48.6%

Budget:
?

Public debt:
?

Inflation rate (consumer prices):
9%

Commercial bank prime lending rate:
9%

Industries:
steel, lead, zinc, silver, aluminium, barite, thorium and gypsum mining processing; food products, brewing, textiles, clothing; rail transportation equipment; glass and crystal; shipping; software and telecommunications

(further economic details to come once we decide - I don't want to be the only person involved - for now, let's say that there is no accurate record since 1994)

[Dr House]

Some more here:

Government bond rating: BB

Detailed income info:

GDP (nominal): $634.25 billion
Per capita: $29,500

GDP (PPP): $774 billion
Per capita: $36,000

GNI (Atlas method): $20,500
GNI (PPP): $24,900

Median salary rate: $19,500
Median household income: $26,000

Personal income distribution by decile:

Bottom decile: $0-$3,420
2nd decile: $3,420 - $6,360
3rd decile: $6,360 - $10,570
4th decile: $10,570 - $13,900
5th decile: $13,900 - $16,400
6th decile: $16,400 - $21,850
7th Decile: $21,850 - $27,000
8th Decile: $27,000 - $39,000
9th Decile: $39,000 - $59,300
10th Decile: $59,300 - up

Average work week: 44 hours

Average wage rate: $8.75/hour

[MB.]

Thanks for the information, House. In summation our economy is founded on a largely industrial/agriculture resource export market and a nascent service sector. Our GDP (nominal) is a figure greater than that of Poland or Belgium and represents twice the revenue of Walmart- the largest company in the world in 2008. The majority of the workforce is employed in field or factory labor.

[Dr House]

Not exactly. It was decided later in the Factbook thread (but too late to edit the OP) that 46% is too large an agricultural labor force, and because of our extremely high level of income inequality it's very probable that the labor force is also a lower portion of employment than presented, as it mostly consists of resource extraction rather than manufacturing.

Most likely sector distribution of labor: 15% agriculture, 21% Industry, 64% Services

GDP Sector Distribution: 11% agriculture, 38% Industry, 51% Services

[MB.]

What is the population of the country?

[Demosthenes]

20 million...

[Dr House]

21.5 to be exact.

[Falx]

Most likely sector distribution of labor: 15% agriculture, 21% Industry, 64% Services

GDP Sector Distribution: 11% agriculture, 38% Industry, 51% Services

While better than the medieval economy that the first proposal presented this is still ridiculous, there is hardly a country in the world that needs to employ more than 2-5% of its labour force in the agriculture sector while it used modern methods of farming. The state of the economy you're presenting there seems more like the Dutch Republic in about the 18th century than a modern country.

[Dr House]

Yeah you're right. Still, part of our back story is that we have huge amounts of agricultural output per capita as we have a high amount of arable land per head (and we also have an underdeveloped manufactuing sector), so a larger-than-normal agricultural share of employment and GDP seems appropriate.

Let's try it again:

GDP sector composition: 7% Agriculture, 41% Industry, 52% Services

Labor force sector composition: 10% Agriculture, 22% Industry, 68% Services

Slightly higher agricultural share of output and employment than Ireland.

[Falx]

Looks better, even though now it's the services that seem over represented. If our industry is struggling it should be employing more people yet producing less output. At any rate we need to figure this out in a separate thread.

[Dr House]

If our industry is struggling it should be employing more people yet producing less output.

Our industry isn't struggling. We have a thriving oil and gas industry and very little manufacturing output, mostly consisting of light industry.

Said industry produces massive amounts of capital productivity and a lot of income, but few jobs. This wouldn't be a problem if it were nationalized as it is in pretty much every oil-producing country, but most of it is owned by overseas investors. which is why so much of our GDP is expatriated.

But yeah, this is for another thread.

[Falx]

Hmm, ok. Why don't we adopt the more traditional economics split of the economy into primary, secondary and tertiary sectors instead of the CIA's categories of agriculture, manufacturing and services? The former is more clearly defined and also more useful given that probably a large part of our economy will be linked with the oil business.

[Dr House]

Doesn't "primary" include resources?

In that case we'd be going back to a very large portion of our economy being in the primary sector, since the bulk of our industrial output is in resources rather than manufacturing.

EDIT: discussion continued here.

[HoniSoit]

I've decided to re-think that position. The UPF is far too large to ignore anyway

This is very wise politically indeed.

We have shown our willingness to negotiate and compromise - which is also the point of the simulation game and what makes it interesting - I hope all other parties could show their willingness, too.

It is very important to remember - as House implies - that it is impossible to ignore SN-RF due to its number of MPs. There will be times when your party needs SN-RF - with its slightly less than 40% of all seats - to support your own bills. It is not going to help if your party completely rejects everything SN-RF does.

So we ask all parties to reconsider their positions - if not for the good of game (i.e. to move the game forward as Andres has pointed out many times but often ignored) - at least thinking strategically about future situations when your party needs the support of SN-RF.